Labour power, materiality and protests in Ghana’s petroleum and gold mines

Bibliographic Data

ID12714031
AuthorsWilliam Otchere-Darko (0000-0001-7522-0364, Dr William Otchere-Darko (corresponding author) is Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Geography, Durham University, Lower Mountjoy, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE; Dr Austin Dziwornu Ablo is Lecturer at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, J. B. Danquah Road, Accra, Ghana, corresponding author), Austin Dziwornu Ablo (0000-0002-8240-4599, Dr William Otchere-Darko (corresponding author) is Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Geography, Durham University, Lower Mountjoy, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE; Dr Austin Dziwornu Ablo is Lecturer at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, J. B. Danquah Road, Accra, Ghana)
Year2021
Volume44
Issue3
Pages289-315
Publication date2021-11-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Development Planning Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1474-6743 • E-ISSN: 1478-3401
PublisherLiverpool University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3828/idpr.2021.24
OpenAlexW3213854154
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited45

We examine the role of resource materiality in extractive labour protests in Ghana. Focusing on petroleum and gold mining, we centre contestations as part of the resources’ socio-natural constituents. Research data was obtained from social conflict databases, newspapers and field interviews. The analysis focused on themes and discourses on protest emergence, mobilisation, negotiation and impacts. Findings show how petroleum labour protesters use passivity and chokepoints to impede gas supply to households. Ghana petroleum workers attempt to garner structural power through workplace power, albeit unsuccessfully. Conversely, gold mineworkers protest by actively reappropriating machinery and extraction spaces. They centre protests in mining towns to emphasise their work as lifeblood. The ‘landedness’ of gold and the introduction of surface mining reshaped such protest tactics. Thus, materiality can help excavate the relational and comparative logic, tactics and potentialities of labour power in resource extracting countries. We suggest extractive labour to forge stronger cross-class coalitions to align workplace exploitation with broader issues of accumulation by dispossession

Gold mining · Materiality (auditing · Mining engineering · Mining industry · Natural resource · Negotiation · Political science · Power (physics · Sociology · Engineering · Hydropower, Displacement, Environmental Impact · Law · Mining and Resource Management · Natural Resources and Economic Development

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